Saturday Hot Links
Time for the 223rd installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest.
Sundance 2016: Amazon Lands Huge Deal for Sundance Sensation ‘Manchester By the Sea’.
Sundance 2016: How Netflix and Amazon Are Dramatically Shaking Up the Market.
Sundance 2016: Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler’s 6 Survival Tips for Producing.
Sundance 2016: There Are No Big Movies at Sundance — And That’s a Good Thing.
Slamdance 2016: Discover 10 Highly-Anticipated Features, Docs & Shorts.
Sundance 2016: Here Are the Sundance 2016 Short Film Winners.
Sundance 2016: Amid Oscars Debacle, Sundance Diversity Shines.
Sundance 2016: ‘Birth of a Nation’ Lands at Fox Searchlight in Record $17.5 Million Deal.
How scared is Hollywood of Netflix and Amazon.
10 Huge Sundance Film Festival Deals (and How They Paid Off).
The 25 Biggest Directors To Break Out Of Sundance.
Sundance Institute Announces $60,000 in Sloan Science in Cinema Awards.
Here Are the Winners of the 2016 Slamdance Film Festival.
Who Gets an Oscar Ballot.
Unmasking the Academy: Oscar voters aren’t always who you might think.
The Real Reason Why The Oscars Are So White.
Academy Answers Questions About Its New Initiatives.
#OscarsSoWhite: Here’s Every Change Hollywood Has Made.
#OscarsSoWhite: Academy Chiefs Reveal Behind-the-Scenes Drama That Led to Historic Change.
Diversity in Hollywood: Failure of Inclusion Plagues the Entire Industry.
Film Studio Scorecard: How Much Diversity Is There at the Very Top [infographic].
The Complete List Of 2016 PGA Awards Winners.
Why ‘Spotlight’ Eschewed Scenes Featuring Reporters’ Personal Lives.
Relativity Media: The Epic Fail of Hollywood’s Hottest Algorithm.
Linguists Analyze Every Disney Princess Movie, to Somewhat Depressing Results.
Raine Group to Invest $100 Million-Plus in Imagine, Partners Eye Expansion.
Open Road Films Gets Financing for 2–4 Movies Per Year.
Artificial Intelligence: Gods, egos and Ex Machina.
There Will Be More Star Wars After ‘Episode IX,’ Says Disney Chairman.
The Future Of ‘Star Wars’ Will Be Told In VR With Big-Name Directors and Top Screenwriters.
Tom Hanks Is America’s Favorite Movie Star.
Ava DuVernay on Hollywood’s Inclusion Problem.
‘Trumbo’ Writer John McNamara Honored by Writers Guild.
Japan Box Office: 2015 Revenue Up 5.2 Percent to $1.84 Billion.
You Can Watch Sundance’s VR Films Right on Your Smartphone.
13 VR Horror Films You Can Watch On Your Phone Right Now.
12 Movies You Pretend To Love But Will Never Watch Again.
‘Sicario’ Producer Reveals Movie’s Original Ending.
The Remarkable Influence of David Lynch.
IndiePix Films Launches Subscription-Streaming Service with 400-Plus International Movies.
Women in Film Awards $32,000 in Grants to Sundance Filmmakers.
Hot TV Trend: Pot-Themed Projects Pick Up Steam.
Star Wars and Saturday Night Live’s Long History in 16 Sketches.
Disney/ABC Television Writing Group Program Sets Eight 2016 Participants.
Sinclair to Acquire Tennis Channel for $350 Million.
Last Call: 39 Films Leaving Netflix This February.
Here’s every new Netflix Original show we know is coming this year.
Beau Willimon Will Exit House of Cards, Series Renewed for Fifth Season.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Confirms Exec Departures, Details Restructuring.
More Than 500 Million People Watch Facebook Videos Each Day.
Inside Facebook’s Decision to Blow Up the Like Button.
Apple May Unveil Original Programming With iPhone 7 Launch.
Your Next iPhone May Not Need A Charging Cable.
How Indiegogo Is Closing the Gap With Kickstarter.
At USC, women now outnumber men in video game design graduate program.
What Will Be Comics’ Next Big Storytelling Technique.
Broadway Hit ‘Hamilton’ to Open in LA — But Not Until 2017.
20 Musicians You Need to Know in 2016.
Live Nation and AEG Live: The Two Companies Eating the Music Festival Industry.
John August: It’s franchises all the way down.
Balls of Steel: Navigating Hollywood — 11 Ways to Develop Your Screenwriting Hustle.
Javier Grillo-Marxuach: The Eleven Laws of Showrunning.
Chuck Wendig: 25 More Hard Truths About Writing And Publishing.
Chicks Who Script: Episode 73 (Liz Garcia).
Scriptnotes: Episode 234.
Watch: ‘Southside With You’ Clip Relives Michelle and Barack Obama’s First Date, Linklater-Style [video].
Watch: Teenager Demonstrates How to Build a Life-Size BB-8 for Less Money Than the Toy [video].
Watch: David Fincher’s Extreme Close-Ups [video].
Watch: Are These the 10 Best Opening Shots of All Time [video].
Watch: 6-Minute Video Essay Goes Inside The Mind Of Oscar Isaac’s Nathan Bateman From ‘Ex Machina’ [video].
Watch: 16-Minute Video Essay Highlights The Importance And Impact Of Composition In Cinematic Storytelling [video].
Watch: 90-Minute Talk With Christopher Nolan, Colin Trevorrow, Rachel Morrison, And Alex Ross Perry [video].
Paul Kantner, Jefferson Airplane Co-Founder and Guitarist, Dies at 74.
Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week: From elevator pitches to development meetings to conference calls with talent, a screenwriter’s ability to share stories in a variety of narrative forms is both a valuable and necessary skillset. In the upcoming 1-week Screenwriting Master Class online course Story Summaries: From Loglines to Beat Sheets [February 8–14], you will learn six different story summaries that are critical assets for any screenwriter.
A screenwriter not only needs to know how to write a script, we also have to be able to convey our stories in multiple other ways. Beyond that, every time we shape a story in a different way, we learn something about it. As such, summaries can be helpful tools in developing, understanding, and crafting our scripts.
This 1-week online course that I will be teaching covers multiple story summaries: Logline, Synopsis, Breakdown, Treatment, Scriptment, and Beat Sheet.
Learn the ins and outs of six different story summaries including using them to help you craft your stories.
Plus you will have the opportunity to craft a logline of your own story with an optional workshop exercise.
The course consists of:
Seven lectures written by Scott Myers
Daily forum Q&As
Optional workshop writing assignments with instructor and class feedback.
A live teleconference between instructor and class members.
In the past, the response from participants in this course has been extremely positive. Here’s one reaction:
The prepared lectures alone are worth the price of this class. But, the added bonus of discussing the lectures as well as being able to workshop my loglines with Scott and my classmates was a fantastic learning experience that really helped me develop my ability to whittle an idea down to one intriguing sentence. If your manager, agent, guru, mother, or favorite reader asks you for a synopsis, treatment, beat sheet, or logline and you have no idea what any of those are then this class is for you. — Calvin Starnes
If you haven’t tried an online course before, this is a great and simple way to do it. You can download lectures any time and read them at your leisure. Peruse forum comments from your fellow classmates and respond whenever you want. The teleconference is on Skype and recorded so you can have access to it for transcription purposes. It’s amazing how convenient and effective online education is.
So why don’t you join me for Story Summaries: From Loglines to Beat Sheets? You can find out more about this 1-week online screenwriting class here.
I hope you can join me starting next Monday for this important and informative class!
Check this out: The Craft Package. Take all eight Craft classes and learn some of screenwriting’s most important principles and practices all for nearly 50% off.
- Automatic enrollment in all 8 Craft classes as they are offered now through May
- Immediate access to the online Craft Package site so you can go through all course content on your own time
- A bonus 9th class — Character Introductions — exclusively for Craft Package enrollees
January 25: Craft: Pixar and the Craft of Storytelling
presented by Scott Myers
February 8: Craft: Story Summaries
presented by Scott Myers
February 22: Craft: Handling Exposition
presented by Scott Myers
March 7: Craft: Scene Description Spotlight
presented by Scott Myers
April 4: Craft: Character Development Keys
presented by Scott Myers
May 2: Craft: Create a Compelling Protagonist
presented by Scott Myers
May 16: Craft: Write a Worthy Nemesis
presented by Scott Myers
May 30: Craft: The Coen Brothers and the Craft of Storytelling
presented by Scott Myers
For more information on the Craft Package, go here.
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